*To view present-day New York City at Google Maps, click [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+York,+NY&hl=en&sll=40.379214,-111.733668&sspn=0.11769,0.264187&oq=New+Y&hnear=New+York,+New+York+County,+New+York&t=m&z=11 here].

*To view present-day New York City at Google Maps, click [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+York,+NY&hl=en&sll=40.379214,-111.733668&sspn=0.11769,0.264187&oq=New+Y&hnear=New+York,+New+York+County,+New+York&t=m&z=11 here].

"The New York metropolitan area is home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel. Until late 2005 or early 2006, when Israel surpassed the United States as having the largest Jewish population in the world, the New York metropolitan area had more Jews than Tel Aviv. After dropping from a peak of 2.5 million in the 1950s to a low of 1.4 million in 2002 the population of Jews in the New York metropolitan area grew to 1.54 million in 2011. ... Major immigration of Jews to New York began in the 1880s, with the increase of Anti-Semitic actions in Central and Eastern Europe. The number of Jews in New York City soared throughout the beginning of the 20th century and reached a peak of 2 million in the 1950s, when Jews constituted one-quarter of the city's population."From Wikipedia.org.

O'Neill, Terri Bradshaw. "Birth and Death Records in New York City Conveyances, 1687-1704: Early New York City Jewish Families," The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. 140, No. 4 (Oct. 2009):272-283.

New York City Directories

Access the Family History Library's excellent collection of New York City directories by clicking here.

Jewish Personal Name Changes

For some Jewish researchers, the greatest challenge is that first and/or last names of their ancestors changed between the Old World and the New World.

Common lore is that the change was made at the port of entry, but in New York City and other passenger lists persons are generally identified in the same way as their Old World traveling documents. For example "Rebecca White" in New York may be "Rivka Weiss" or even "Beila Weiß" on the passenger lists and in Old World records.

From the Family History Library, a Family History Center, or other participating institution, click here.

Surname Changes

To understand the scope of the surname challenge, read the Wikipedia.org article Cohen (and its variations) as a surname by clicking here.

Immigrants from foreign countries were often faced with the following choices:

Change European special characters (diacritics) and letter combinations to approximate English equivalents [e.g., Weiß to Weiss].

Retain the original spelling, but have the name mispronounced.

Change the spelling to retain the pronunciation.

Translate the last name to English [e.g., Weiß to White, Zimmermann to Carpenter, Schwartz to Black].

Change the name to make it less foreign-sounding [e.g. Meier to Myer, Leo Kochanski to Hans Leon].

To find possible alternative spellings, try searching the JewishGen.org Family Finder database by clicking here. Use the spellings you already have with the "sounds like" or "starts with" options. This may yield suggestions for alternate spellings.

Find additional information in these books available at the reference desk in the Family History Library:

A Dictionary of German-Jewish Surnames by Lars Menk.

A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland, by Alexander Beider.

A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire, by Alexander Beider.

New York City Immigration Records

Passenger lists are available through multiple sources. Not all passengers heading to New York City came through the Port of New York. For example, some may have entered by crossing the Canadian border or have gone through other ports. Following are suggestions for finding your arriving family members:

Ancestry.com has many immigration collections, including Hamburg Germany departures. The Hamburg Passenger lists starting in 1850 include information about the last place of residence in Europe. New York arrivals seldom show European residence information until after 1900.